Book-7-Study-Canto-2

Book Seven: Canto II

The Parable of the Search for the Soul

Summary
One night as Savitri is s’tting musing upon the approaching Fate, a summons from the summits of her being comes in a mighty Voice. Her body becomes rigid and all grows still. She listens to the Voice:

Was it to nurse this grief and helplessly await thy doom, that thou earnest to earth ? O spirit, O immortal energy, arise and conquer Time and Death.

Savitri answers:
“My strength is taken away from me and given to Death. Why should I struggle with Fate, why should I strive to uplift this ignorant race that is satisfied with its lot and mocks at the saving Light? Is there a God who can be moved by any cry? He leaves man to the mercy of Law and Death. Why should I and Satyavan fight Death? Why not we pass through the night to the sun beyond?”

The Voice replies:
Is that enough, O spirit? What will thy soul say when it wakes and realises that the work for which it came remains undone? Was it for this that thou camest on earth with a mandate from eternity? Art thou going leave the old laws unchanged? Shall there be no new world, no deliverance for man from unchanging Fate? Hast thou not come clown to open the doors of Fate and lead man to the wide and golden road of truth? Am I to confess to the Eternal that His power kindled in thee has failed and his labourer returns with her task unfulfilled?

Savitri’s heart falls mute; she does not speak. But a Power within her answers:

I am thy portion here on earth. Command, I will do thy work.

The Voice replies:
Remember why thou earnest. Find out thy soul, seek God’s meaning in thy depths. Change mortal nature into the divine. Open God’s door and enter into communion with Him. Cast away thought and sense; let His vast Truth awake and see. Then shalt thou behold the Eternal’s body in the world, meet Him everywhere; thy heart shall beat in God. Then shalt thou embody my Force and vanquish Death.

Savitri continues to sit in her motionless pose. She looks into herself and seeks for her soul.

The Cosmic past is revealed to her in a series of dream images: the first steps of creation, the soul embodying itself in the body, Matter slowly learning to think, Space filled with seeds of life and the human creature being born in Time. At first a being appears out of an infinite Nought, a Consciousness looks out at the Inconscient vast around, pleasure and pain vibrate in an insensible Void.

All looks like the motion of a blind World-Energy working unconsciously shaping a universe out of a veritable Void. Slowly sensibilities gather round a pinpoint of ego; a sentient creature finds its poise. Gradually a formless Consciousness appears, thoughts and feelings stir, repetition forms habit, habit gives the appearance of permanence and a conscious being is built.

Behind all our thoughts, hopes and dreams there is a conscious Soul assenting to Nature’s acts, leaving the mind to function as its vicegerent. This mind is ever active, tossed about on the sea of Time, buffetted by waves of Life. It knows no silence, thoughts move in it in an endless stream. The senses bring in reports from the outside every moment. Even in sleep there is a rush of activity, though of another kind. This is the little surface of man’s life. But within him is locked a mysterious world, Deep within lives a hidden King in the solitude of the spirit, a portion of God.

Man is truly a little front of Nature’s action. All the opposites in creation are there in him. In his subconscious and unconscious regions he harbours all the dangerous dark forces which at times rise up and besiege his conscious being. This evil Nature can even dislodge the soul that is the real owner of the house. Always, there is a contrary to God threatening God’s creation.

But there is a Grace that guards, Hands that save. Calm divine eyes regard this human scene. All the possibilities of the world wait in man as the tree in its seed. I iii Past determines his future, his present acts shape his fate. Within him lie the gods and demons that create the moulds in which he grows. Our surface is aware of only a little of its course; a vast subliminal and a dim subconscient are there overpowering in their range and force, Our past is never wholly dead. Something clings and drags back our nature’s forward stride. We live in the mind’s dubious light and know not the meaning and purpose of the world.

Above us is the superconscience, around us is the ignorance, below us is the Inconscience.But this is only the first appearance of the material world. This is not all that we are. On the summits of our being, beyond the thinking mind our greater self of knowledge awaits us. it is a surface light that shines in a truth-conscious Vast; when that Light descends, earth’s life will turn divine. That is our real godhead.

Behind our surface exterior, there are great nesses hidden in our unseen parts. They project their influences and urge us to move forward. Our soul in its secret chamber seeks for Good, Beauty and God. There is an inner mind that dwells in a larger light, an inner life-self that gives the dynamism to soar to our summits, an inner, subtle physical self which is instinct with a truth-sense of its own, Man was the first creature to lift up his head, look upwards and behold the friendly stars. He saw his unrealised vastnesses and his secret aspiration found articulation. Slowly he grew in vision and power and approached the ranges of the Omniscient and the Omnipotent. He climbed the stairs of evolution and saw the light of the special sun. At long last man is able to ascend to his high source and reach his fount of immortality. From there he calls the Godhead into his mortal life.

All this has been done in Savitri by the spirit in her. A portion of the mighty Mother comes into her. She is made the Centre of a wide-drawn scheme to mould humanity into God’s own shape, to discover a new world or create one.

Earth must transform herself and become the equal of Heaven or Heaven must descend into earth. But for this transmutation to be possible, the Psyche—the inner Soul—must come out of her secrecy and step into the outer nature, assume rulership over its domain of mind, life and body.

Savitri sits obedient to the Command from above. Her sight has to break through the veils of inferior nature and ignorance which conceal her-self and find her soul within.

Summons from the Summits

As in the vigilance of the sleepless night
Through the slow heavy-footed silent hours,
Repressing in her bosom its load of grief,
She sat staring at the dumb tread of Time
And the approach of ever-nearing Fate,
A summons from her being’s summit came,
A sound, a call that broke the seals of Night.

As Savitri sits sleepless through the slow, heavy night, repressing the grief in her heart and staring at the dumb passage of Time and the hastening approach of Fate, she suddenly hears a call from the summits of her being, a sound that breaks the seals of the Darkness around her.

Mighty Voice Invades

Above her brows where will and knowledge meet
A mighty Voice invaded mortal space.

It seemed to come from inaccessible heights
And yet was intimate with all the world
And knew the meaning of the steps of Time
And saw eternal destiny’s changeless scene
Filling the far prospect of the cosmic gaze.

A mighty Voice breaks through her vision centre above the eye-brows 1 where is the seat of Will and Knowledge. It seems to belong to supreme heights and yet it is intimately aware of this world, understands the mystery of passing Time and sees in the Cosmic Space the fixed field for the working of the Eternal’s Will.

ajna -chakra

Stillness

As the Voice touched, her body became a stark
And rigid golden statue of motionless trance,
A stone of God lit by an amethyst soul.

Around her body’s stillness all grew still:
Her heart listened to its slow measured beats,
Her mind renouncing thought heard and was mute:

At the impact of the Voice, her body stiffens, and she goes into a motionless trance, looking a golden statue, a stone of God luminous with a jewelled lout. An grows still around the stillness of her body; in that silence her heart listens to its own rhythmic beats; her mind becomes empty of thought, hears the Voice and is silent.

Arise, O Soul

“Why camest thou to this dumb deathbound earth,
This ignorant life beneath indifferent skies
Tied like a sacrifice on the altar of Time,
O spirit, O immortal energy,
If ’twas to nurse grief in a helpless heart
Or with hard tearless eyes awake thy doom?

Arise, O soul, and vanquish Time and Death.”

The Voice speaks:O spirit, O immortal energy that thou art, why didst thou come to this dumb and mortal earth, this ignorant life beneath an uncaring heaven, bound and offered as an oblation on the sacrificial altar of Time, if it was only to nurse grief helplessly as thou doest or tearfully await thy doom ?

O soul, arise and conquer Time and Death. Summon thy heroic soul that can vanquish these; stay not in thy outer person that feels helpless.

Why Uplift an Ignorant Race

But Savitri’s heart replied in the dim night:
“My strength is taken from me and given to Death,
Why should I lift my hands to the shut heavens
Or struggle with mute inevitable Fate
Or hope in vain to uplift an ignorant race
Who hug their lot and mock the saviour Light
And see in Mind Wisdom’s sole tabernacle,
In its harsh peak and its inconscient base
A rock of safety and an anchor of sleep?

Savitri’s heart replies:My strength is no more with me: it is taken away from me and given to Death. The heavens are shut to me; why should I plead with them? Why should I struggle with the inevitable, dumb Fate? Why should I hope and try in vain to save and uplift this ignorant race which hugs its miserable lot and mocks at the Light that comes to save, which again looks upon the Mind as the sole temple of Wisdom, regards its hard summits of reason and its base in the nether inconscience as a rock of safety and an anchor of happy rest?

Is there a God

Is there a God whom any cry can move?

He sits in peace and leaves the mortal’s strength
Impotent against his calm omnipotent Law
And Inconscience and the almighty hands of Death.

What need have I, what need has Satyavan
To avoid the black meshed net, the dismal door,
Or call a mightier Light into life’s closed room,
A greater Law into man’s little world?

Why should I strive with earth’s unyielding laws
Or stave off death’s inevitable hour?

Is there really a God whom prayer can move? God sits in peace and leaves man alone in his puny strength which is powerless against the calm, omnipotent Law of God, against the stark Inconscience and the all-powerful hands of Death.

What need have I or Satyavan to avoid the black-knit net of death, its dismal door? Why should I call in a mightier Light into this little closed room of life, call a greater Law to intervene in this petty world of man? Why indeed should I battle with the adamant laws of earth-life or ward off the inevitable hour of death?

This surely is Best

This surely is best to pactise with my fate
And follow close behind my lover’s steps
And pass through night from twilight to the sun
Across the tenebrous river that divides
The adjoining parishes of earth and heaven.

Then could we lie inarmed breast upon breast,
Untroubled by thought, untroubled by our hearts,
Forgetting man and life and time and its hours,
Forgetting eternity’s call, forgetting God.”

“It appears best to accept my fate and follow my lover through the night of death to the bright heavens across the dark river 1 that separates the little realms of earth and heaven which are indeed so close. Then both of us could lie in each other’s arms, in close embrace, troubled neither by mind nor by heart, forgetting all about this world of man and its passage in time, forgetting also the call of Eternity, forgetting even God.”

Vaitarini

Is this enough?

The Voice replied: “Is this enough, O spirit?

And what shall thy soul say when it wakes and knows
The work was left undone for which it came?

Or is this all for thy being born on earth
Charged with a mandate from eternity,
A listener to the voices of the years,
A follower of the footprints of the gods,
To pass and leave unchanged the old dusty laws?

The Voice replies:O spirit, is that enough? What shall thy soul say when it wakes up from this spell of forget-fullness and realises that the mission for which it came to earth lies unfulfilled ? Surely thy being has taken birth on earth charged with a divine task. It is a companion of Time, a traveller on the path of the gods; can it just pass through this life on earth and leave its old encrusted laws unchanged ? Its mandate is to change them.

Shall there be no new Word

Shall there be no new tables, no new Word,
No greater light come down upon the earth
Delivering her from her unconsciousness,
Man’s spirit from unalterable fate?

Cam’st thou not down to open the doors of Fate,
The iron doors that seemed for ever closed,
And lead man to truth’s wide and golden road
That runs through finite things to eternity?

Shall there not be new laws, a new Message? Shall not a new light, greater than the present, come down on earth to free her from her basic state of unconsciousness, to free man’s spirit from adamant fate?

Host thou not come down from thy heights in the Spirit in order to break open the hard doors of Fate that seem ever closed and to lead man from his narrow path in ignorance to the wide and luminous road of truth that forges through the finite world to the infinite and the eternal ?

What Report to the Eternal?

Is this then the report that I must make,
My head bowed with shame before the Eternal’s seat,—
His power he kindled in thy body has failed,
His labourer returns, her task undone?”

“Is this the report that I must make with my head bowed in shame before the throne of the Eternal? Shall I have to say that His power embodied in Savitri has failed, that His servitor returns without doing the work for which she was sent to earth?”

A Power Within Answers

Then Savitri’s heart fell mute, it spoke no word.

But holding back her troubled rebel heart,
Abrupt, erect and strong, calm like a hill,
Surmounting the seas of mortal ignorance,
Its peak immutable above mind’s air,
A Power within her answered the still Voice:

Savitri’s heart falls silent; it speaks no word. But a Power within her, holding hack her rebellious heart, sudden, erect and strong, calm like a hill, rising beyond the seas of human ignorance, its unshakable peak towering above the agitated mind, answers the still Voice.

I am here to do thy work

“I am thy portion here charged with thy work,
As thou myself seated for ever above,
Speak to my depths, O great and deathless Voice,
Command, for I am here to do thy will.”

O great and immortal Voice, I am a portion of thee here charged with thy work. Thou art myself ever stationed above; speak thou to my depths, command me, for I am here only to do thy will.

Seek God’s Meaning

The Voice replied: “Remember why thou cam’st:
Find out thy soul, recover thy hid self,
In silence seek God’s meaning in thy depths,
Then mortal nature change to the divine.

The Voice replies:Remember the purpose for which thou host come to the earth. Seek out thy soul, recover thy self which is lost to thy sight. In thy depths lies the truth that explains all; seek that in silence. Then proceed to change thy mortal nature into divine nature.

Cast thought from thee

Open God’s door, enter into his trance.

Cast Thought from thee, that nimble ape of Light:
In his tremendous hush stilling thy brain
His vast Truth wake within and know and see.

Open the closed door of God, enter into his state of consciousness. Throw away thought from thee. It is only a clever imitation of Light. Then will the mighty Silence of God invade thy mind and still the brain. In that hush thou shalt awake within to the vast Truth of God, know it and see it.

Eternal’s Body in the World

Cast from thee sense that veils thy spirit’s sight:
In the enormous emptiness of thy mind
Thou shalt see the Eternal’s body in the world,
Know him in every voice heard by thy soul:
In the world’s contacts meet his single touch;
All things shall fold thee into his embrace.

Cast away also the veil of sense that obstructs the direct sight of thy spirit. Then in the wide vacancy of thy mind—emptied of thought and sense—thou shalt behold the Eternal manifest in the world, recognise him in every voice heard by thy soul, feel his unique touch in every contact in the world. So through all things you will feel his embrace.

Harbour my force

Conquer thy heart’s throbs, let thy heart beat in God:
Thy nature shall be the engine of his works,
Thy voice shall house the mightiness of his Word:
Then shalt thou harbour my force and conquer Death.”

Free thy heart from thy emotions; let it beat only in the rhythm of God. Thy nature shall be the powerful instrument for his workings; thy voice shall carry the force of his creative Word. Then—when all this is done—thou shalt embody my force and with it overcome Death.

She Looks into herself

Then Savitri by her doomed husband sat,
Still rigid in her golden motionless pose,
A statue of the fire of the inner sun.

In the black night the wrath of storm swept by,
The thunder crashed above her, the rain hissed,
Its million footsteps pattered on the roof.

Impassive mid the movement and the cry,
Witness of the thoughts of mind, the moods of life,
She looked into herself and sought for her soul.

Savitri continues to sit by the side of her husband who is under sentence of death. Motionless as a statue, she sits lit up with the brilliance of her inner sun. Amidst the sweep of the storm, the crash of thunder and pouring of rain, she sits impassive, untouched by all the movement and the cry around her, a witness of the passing thoughts of the mind and the moods of life; she looks into herself and searches for her soul.

The Cosmic Past

A dream disclosed to her the cosmic past,
The crypt-seed and the mystic origins,
The shadowy beginnings of world-fate:
A lamp of symbol lighting hidden truth
Imaged to her the world’s significance.

A dream-vision reveals to her the past of the cosmos, the hidden seed and occult origins, the vague beginnings of the world-movement and its fate. A symbolic imagery lights up the hidden truth and pictures to her the meaning and significance of the World.

First Seps

In the indeterminate formlessness of Self
Creation took its first mysterious steps,
It made the body’s shape a house of soul
And Matter learned to think and person grew;
She saw Space peopled with the seeds of life
And saw the human creature born in Time.

The first mysterious steps of creation are taken in the featureless formlessness of the Self. The form of the body, a dwelling-place for the soul, is made. Matter slowly develops the faculty of thinking and the individual grows. Savitri sees all Space crowded with the seeds of life and she sees man appear gradually in time.

Out of Infinite Nought

At first appeared a dim half-neutral tide
Of being emerging out of infinite Nought:
A consciousness looked at the inconscient Vast
And pleasure and pain stirred in the insensible Void.

At first there appears a dim inchoate movement of being coming out of an infinite Non-Being. A Consciousness peers at the extended inconscient Vast and sensations of pleasure and pain begin to stir in that insensible Void.

World-Energy

All was the deed of a blind World-Energy:
Unconscious of her own exploits she worked,
Shaping a universe out of the Inane.

All is the working of a blind 1,•orkl-wide, world-shaping Energy. The Energy is not conscious of her actions, but goes on working, building up a universe out of an infinite Void.

Ego’s Pinpoint Head

In fragmentary beings she grew aware:
A chaos of little sensibilities
Gathered round a small ego’s pinpoint head;
In it a sentient creature found its poise,
It moved and lived a breathing, thinking whole.

This Energy slowly becomes self-aware in several fragmented formations. Chaotic movements of little sensibilities gather round a small, pin-head ego. And in this ego the sentient creature finds its poise. Based upon this ego, the creature moves and lives as an animate and thinking being.

The ego is the point provided by Nature for the centralisation of all movements in flux; the being forms itself around this Centre.

Surface Consciousness Awakes

On a dim ocean of subconscient life
A formless surface consciousness awoke:
A stream of thoughts and feelings came and went,
A foam of memories hardened and became
A bright crust of habitual sense and thought,
A seat of living personality
And recurrent habits mimicked permanence.

On the obscure ocean of subeonscient life there awakes slowly a vague surface consciousness: there is a flow of passing thoughts and feelings: a froth of memories hardens and becomes a solid crust of habit in sense and thought, the base of articulate individuality. Habits repeating themselves constantly give the appearance of permanence.

A Conscious being forms

Mind nascent laboured out a mutable form,
It built a mobile house on shifting sands,
A floating isle upon a bottomless sea.

A conscious being was by this labour made;
It looked around it on its difficult field
In the green wonderful and perilous earth;
It hoped in a brief body to survive,
Relying on Matter’s false eternity.

It felt a godhead in its fragile house;
It saw blue heavens, dreamed immortality.

The infant mind shapes with difficulty a form which, however, s not stable; it erects a moving tenement on the shifting sands of life, a floating island upon the surface of a bottomless sea. A conscious being is produced by all this labour. It looks around upon its uneven field of experience and growth on this fresh, wonderful but dangerous earth. Relying upon the apparent eternity of Matter it hopes to survive all threats to its life in a short-lived body. It feels the presence of a godhead in its brittle easement: it gazes upon the blue firmament of the sky and dreams of immortality.

Vicegerent Mind a Seeming King

A conscious soul in the Inconscient’s world
Hidden behind our thoughts and hopes and dreams,
An indifferent Master signing Nature’s acts
Leaves the vicegerent mind a seeming king.

In this world based upon Inconscience, hidden behind all our thoughts, hopes and dreams is a conscious soul. This soul is the Master, who, however, indifferently consents to the rule of Nature. Consequently, the mind which is but a representative of this soul becomes apparently the king, the ruler; in reality, of course, it is subject to Nature.

Regent a Puppet

In his floating house upon the sea of Time
This regent sits at work and never rests:
He is a puppet of the dance of Time;
He is driven by the hours, the moment’s call
Compels him with the thronging of life’s need
And the babel of the voices of the world.

This regent in his floating house is ever at work, without respite; he is a puppet of the circumstances that are thrown up in time he is driven by events; from moment to moment he is lashed by the whip of the imperious wants of life and pulled by the several confusing calls of the world.

Mind Toils like a Machine

This mind no silence knows nor dreamless sleep,
In the incessant circling of its steps
Thoughts tread for ever through the listening brain;
It toils like a machine and cannot stop.

The mind does not know silence nor can it sleep undisturbed by dreams, It is in constant movement—a movement that turns round and round—and thoughts go on passing incessantly through its brain that passively listens. It toils like a machine unable to stop its activity.

Babble and Stir

Into the body’s many-storeyed rooms
Endless crowd down the dream-god’s messages.

All is a hundred-toned murmur and babble and stir,
There is a tireless running to and fro,
A haste of movement and a ceaseless cry,

Intimations from this dreaming mind pour profusely and endlessly into the varied structures of the body, crowding its chambers of multiple functions. Everywhere there is a stir and a confused murmur of many voices, there are hasty movements in all directions, a perpetual hurry and cry.

Servant Senses

The hurried servant senses answer apace
To every knock upon the outer doors,
Bring in life’s visitors, report each call,
Admit the thousand queries and the calls
And the messages of communicating minds
And the heavy business of unnumbered lives
And all the thousandfold commerce of the world.

The servant senses are ever in a hurry attending to calls from the outside world, admitting life’s visitors, reporting each contact, answering innumerable queries, registering intimations from other communicating minds, carrying on their huge interchange in this innumerable and multiple world.

Scant Repose

Even in the tracts of sleep is scant repose;
He mocks life’s steps in strange subconscient dreams,
He strays in a sublime realm of symbol scenes,
His night with thin-air visions and dim forms
He packs or peoples with slight drifting shapes
And only a moment spends in silent self.

Even in sleep there is hardly any rest. The regent mind parodies, as it were, the movements of waking life in strange subconscient dreams; he wanders off in higher realms of symbolic imagery. He is occupied in filling nights with unsubstantial visions, vague forms and their moving shapes. Only for a brief moment he reposes in the silent self within.

In Imagination’s Car

Adventuring into infinite mind-space
He unfolds his wings of thought in inner air,
Or travelling in imagination’s car
Crosses the globe, journeys beneath the stars,
To subtle worlds takes his ethereal course,
Visits the gods on life’s miraculous peaks,
Communicates with Heaven, tampers with Hell.

This regent mind soars freely into the inner mental regions on the wings of thought or travels in the car of imagination. crossing the globe, traversing the stars, visiting subtler worlds. It encounters the gods on the wonder-summits of life, communicates with Heaven and also dabbles in Hell.

Whole World Within

This is the little surface of man’s life.

He is this and he is all the universe;
He scales the Unseen, his depths dare the Abyss;
A whole mysterious world is locked within.

Such is man’s little life. But it is so only on the surface. In truth man is much more; below the surface he is as wide as the universe. He ascends to the summits of the Unseen, he plunges into the depths of the Abyss of the universe. Within him is locked up a whole world of mystery—a world not normally seen or fathomed.

Hidden King

Unknown to himself lives a hidden king
Behind rich tapestries in great secret rooms;
An epicure of the spirit’s unseen joys,
He lives on the sweet honey of solitude:
A nameless god in an unapproachable fane,
In the secret adytum of his inmost soul
He guards the being’s covered mysteries
Beneath the threshold behind shadowy gates
Or shut in vast cellars of inconscient sleep.

Unknown to the outer man, there lives in the large inner chambers, behind picturesque veils, the hidden King; a great enjoyer of the unseen felicities of the spirit, he thrives upon the honey of solitude. Like a god without a name in an inaccessible temple, in the sanctum sanctorum of the inmost soul, he guards the hidden mysteries of his being behind the gates of unawareness or concealed in the subterranean chambers of inconscient sleep.

Man Works Dreams of God

The immaculate Divine All-Wonderful
Casts into the argent purity of his soul
His splendour and his greatness and the light
Of self-creation in Time’s infinity
As into a sublimely mirroring glass.

Man in the world’s life works out the dreams of God.

The unsullied All-wonderful Divine casts the glory and light of his self-creation in boundless Time into the white purity of the soul of man which reflects as in a pure mirror the splendour and radiance of the Divine. That is how man works out the dreams of the creative God.

Even God’s Opposites

But all is there, even God’s opposites;
He is a little front of Nature’s works,
A thinking outline of a cryptic Force.

Indeed, all is in man not only the glories of God but even their contraries. Man is but a small front for the workings of Nature, an articulate and thinking figure of a hidden Force.
Not the Gods alone

All she reveals in him that is in her,
Her glories walk in him and her darknesses.

Man’s house of life holds not the gods alone:
There are occult Shadows, there are tenebrous Powers,
Inhabitants of life’s ominous nether rooms,
A shadowy world’s stupendous denizens.

Nature reveals in man all that is in her—her glories as well as her darknesses. Man houses in himself not the bright gods alone, but also hidden Shadows, dark Powers which dwell in his sub-conscious and unconscious regions. They are the powerful and dominating occupants of the obscure world in him.

Man Harbours Dangerous Forces

A careless guardian of his nature’s powers,
Man harbours dangerous forces in his house.

The Titan and the Fury and the Djinn
Lie bound in the subconscient’s cavern pit
And the Beast grovels in his antre den:
Dire mutterings rise and murmur in their drowse.

Man is a careless guardian of the powers of his nature. He harbours dangerous forces in his being; in the depths of his subconscient lie captive the Titan, the Fury and the Diinn-forces of extraordinary strength and intellect, of intense anger and vengeance, of supernaturally immediate effectuation. The animal in him lies low in this nether region. Mutterings and murmurings rise from their semi-dormant states

Insurgence

Insurgent sometimes raises its huge head
A monstrous mystery lurking in life’s deeps,
The mystery of dark and fallen worlds,
The dread visages of the adversary Kings.

At times the fearful visages of these hostile principals,—the mystery of dark and depraved regions,—lurking in the sub-conscious and unconscious belts of the being raise their heads in rebellion against the rule of the higher man.

Dreadful Powers Invade

The dreadful powers held down within his depths
Become his masters or his ministers;
Enormous they invade his bodily house,
Can act in his acts, infest his thought and life.

All the dreadful powers suppressed in the lower depths of man’s being, rush up and either gain his ear and influence him or wholly dominate over him. Rising to their full stature they occupy his entire physical being: they act through his activities, they fill his thinking and living.

Inferno surges

Inferno surges into the human air
And touches all with a perverting breath.

Grey forces like a thin miasma creep
Stealing through chinks in his closed mansion’s doors,
Discolouring the walls of upper mind
In which he lives his fair and specious life,
And leave behind a stench of sin and death:

A veritable hell is let loose on the scene and it fouls everything with its pervading breath. Through inadvertent openings and gaps in the fortress of man, obscure and foreign elements creep in with their infectious stuff. taint the fair hues of the regions of his upper mind where he normally lives his elegantly ordered existence and leave behind an offensive odour of sin and death.

Awful Presences and Shapes

Not only rise in him perverse drifts of thought
And formidable formless influences,
But there come presences and awful shapes:
Tremendous forms and faces mount dim steps
And stare at times into his living-rooms,
Or called up for a moment’s passionate work
Lay a dire custom’s claim upon his heart:
Aroused from sleep, they can be bound no more.

Perverse winds of thought blow in him intangible influences gain ground. And what is more, awful presences and shapes appear. These huge forms and faces rise at times unbidden from the lower unconscious levels of man’s being to his surface consciousness where he becomes aware of them and can deal with them. But there are other times when these perverse forces are actually summoned by man for some brief passionate work. But the work over, they cannot be dismissed easily for they acquire a legitimate claim on him and insist on continuing their activity. Once aroused from their sleep, they can no longer be chained down.

All Light Perturb

Afflicting the daylight and alarming night,
Invading at will his outer tenement
The stark gloom’s grisly dire inhabitants
Mounting into God’s light all light perturb.

These forms and faces, these dreadful, terror-striking inhabitants of the dark regions below, invade man’s conscious parts at their will. During daytime they cause distress, but at night they make positive inroads and become dangerous. They climb up from the nether darkness into the God-given light above and attack all light.

Nether Riot and Revel

All they have touched or seen they make their own,
In Nature’s basement lodge, mind’s passages fill,
Disrupt thought’s links and musing sequences,
Break through the soul’s stillness with a noise and cry
Or they call the inhabitants of the abyss,
Invite the instincts to forbidden joys,
A laughter wake of dread demoniac mirth
And with nether riot and revel shake life’s floor.

These unwelcome visitants appropriate to themselves whatever they see or touch. They dwell in the subterranean regions of nature, crowd the passages of the mind, interfere with the processes of thought and contemplation, invade the silences of the soul with their noises and cries. Or they summon the denizens of the still lower regions of the abyss and precipitate hidden instincts into forbidden orgies of wild pleasure and mirth; they stir up the wild demoniac laughter of these unruly elements and with their riot and revel throw life into utter disorder.

Householder Helpless

Impotent to quell his terrible prisoners
Appalled the householder helpless sits above,
Taken from him his house is his no more.

He is bound and forced, a victim of the play,
Or, allured, joys in the mad and mighty din.

And man, the owner of the house sits helpless and appalled unable to control his own dreadful prisoners. His very house is no more his. lie is bound, compelled to be a victim of their nefarious play. Or, he is enticed and foolishly joins in their mad revels.

Rebel’s Holiday

His nature’s dangerous forces have arisen
And hold at will a rebel’s holiday.

Aroused from the darkness where they crouched in the depths,
Prisoned from the sight, they can be held no more;
His nature’s impulses are now his lords.

The dangerous forces of his nature have broken out of control and enjoy a rebel’s holiday. The master of the house is helpless.

From the obscure regions where they lay dormant, concealed from view, they have been aroused; they cannot be held down any longer. These foul impulses of his own lower nature are now his defiant rulers.

Infernal elements overpower

Once quelled or wearing specious names and vests
Infernal elements, demon powers are there.

Man’s lower nature hides these awful guests.

Their vast contagion grips sometimes man’s world.

An awful insurgence overpowers man’s soul.

Now no more under subjugation, these hellish elements, demon powers, hold sway under spurious labels and names.

Man’s lower nature is full of these hidden elements, At times their vast contagion infects man’s world. His soul is overpowered by their organised rising.

Uprising Grows

In house and house the huge uprising grows;
Hell’s companies are loosed to do their work,
Into the earth-ways they break out from all doors,
Invade with blood-lust and the will to slay
And fill with horror and carnage God’s fair world.

This massive uprising spreads from man to man. Armies from hell are let loose to carry out their nefarious work, From every opening they break into the earth-life with their lust for blood and will to kill and they altogether fill this fair world of God with horror and slaughter.

Terrible Angel Smites

Death and his hunters stop a victim earth;
The terrible Angel smites at every door:
An awful laughter mocks at the world’s pain
And massacre and torture grin at Heaven:
All is the prey of the destroying force;
Creation rocks and tremble top and base.

Death and his agents stride upon the helpless earth. The Angel of Death does not leave a single house unsmitten. Dreadful laughter derides the pain of the world; slaughter and torture grin at Heaven sure of their ascendency.

All becomes the prey of the force of destruction let loose. The whole creation shakes with fear.

Dangerous Guest

This evil Nature housed in human hearts
A foreign inhabitant, a dangerous guest:
The soul that harbours it it can dislodge,
Expel the householder, possess the house.

This evil Nature in man is in truth foreign to him it is a dangerous guest; for this guest dislodges its host—the human soul that gives quarter to it. It expells the owner and occupies the house.

Man has to be careful not to let any of these elements enter his being under whatever plea or provocation. They always have a tendency to occupy more and more of his being, supplant all that is good in him, all that derives from the soul, and ultimately displace the soul itself from its throne.

Manichean Creator and Destroyer

An opposite potency contradicting God,
A momentary Evil’s almightiness
Has straddled the straight path of Nature’s acts.

It imitates the Godhead it denies,
Puts on his figure and assumes his face.

A Manichean creator and destroyer,
This can abolish man, annul his world.

A potent Power contradicting God, a might of Evil irresistible for the moment, has crossed the straight path of Nature’s course, This opponent imitates the Godhead which it has come to negate, assumes his shape and appearance, This is the Power of opposition that sets itself against God, it has the power both to create and destroy; it creates what God destroys and destroys what God creates. It can abolish man and stamp out his creation.

Hands that Save

But there is a guardian power, there are Hands that save,
Calm eyes divine regard the human scene.

But this is not allowed to happen. For there is a Grace that presides, a greater Power that guards, there are Divine Hands that save man. Calm, divine eyes always regard the human scene; in that look is the strength that protects and sustains.

World’s Possibilities in Man

All the world’s possibilities in man
Are waiting as the tree waits in its seed:
His past lives in him; it drives his future’s pace;
His present’s acts fashion his coming fate.

Man epitomises the universe. In him are waiting all the possibilities that seek for actualisation in the world. They are potent in him as the tree is in its seed.

His past is not dead: it continues to live in his habits, inclinations, turns of nature. It impels the formation of his future. What he does at present also determines his future fate.

Unborn Gods Live in Him

The unborn gods hide in his house of Life.

The daemons of the unknown overshadow his mind
Casting their dreams into live moulds of thought,
The moulds in which his mind builds out its world.

His mind creates around him its universe.

The creative Powers that are not yet manifest remain concealed in man’s being. These deities of the subtler planes loom over his mind and release their dreams into vibrant moulds of thoughts i.e., his thoughts are formed by the impulsions of these gods. According to these moulds is the world that the mind proceeds to build. And, indeed, man lives in the universe that his mind creates around him.

Their Secret Purpose

All that has been renews in him its birth,
All that can be is figured in his soul.

Issuing in deeds it scores on the roads of the world,
Obscure to the interpreting reason’s guess,
Lines of the secret purpose of the gods.

What has taken place does not pass away. It renews itself in a cryptic form in man. All that is to take place in the future is also there pre-cast in the depths of his being—the soul. It effectuates itself into action during the course of his life in the world, leaving hints of the hidden plans of the gods which, however, the interpreting power of the mind can hardly understand.

Intimate plan

In strange directions runs the intricate plan;
Held back from human foresight is their end.

And the far intention of some ordering Will
Or the order of life’s arbitrary Chance
Finds out its settled poise and fated hour.

The plan of the gods is intricate, it spreads in unexpected directions, its goal is concealed from the reach of human sight. There is throughout a higher Will that orders things’ according to an inherent truth; or there is a self-regulating purposive order that masks itself in the workings of what looks like an arbitrary Chance. This Intention finds the right rhythm and the right time for the effectuation of things.

The Self-Existent has ordered objects perfectly according to their nature from years sempiternal.— Isa Upanishad 8.

Only a Little; has Will

Our surface watched in vain by reason’s gaze,
Invaded by the impromptus of the unseen,
Helpless records the accidents of Time,
The involuntary turns and leaps of life.

Only a little of us foresees its steps,
Only a little has will and purposed pace.

Human reason looks in vain upon the surfaces of life for clues. These surfaces are constantly barged into by elements from regions unseen: they only serve to register inexplicable happenings in Time and unexpected, uncaused turns and leaps of life.

Only a little part of us is conscious, knows where it is moving, only a little part has a will and a purpose in its movement.

Our Past Lives Still

A vast subliminal is man’s measureless part.

The dim subconscient is his cavern base.

Abolished vainly in the walks of Time
Our past lives still in our unconscious selves
And by the weight of its hidden influences
Is shaped our future’s self-discovery.

A vast subliminal being is there in man and that is not limited, not measurable. And there is his obscure subconscient past which forms the hidden foundation of his life. We think an experience passes with the passage of time and we dismiss it; but it does not die, it lives on in our unconscious selves in the form of subtle influences. These samskaras, tendencies and inclinations rooted in the past determine to a great extent the formation of the future.

All an Inevitable Chain

Thus all is an inevitable chain
And yet a series seems of accidents.

The unremembering hours repeat the old acts,
Our dead past round our future’s ankles clings
And drags back the new nature’s glorious stride,

Thus the past, the present, the future form a continuous, unbroken chain of experience in time. Even then, events appear as if they were accidents, a series of unexpected, unconnected happenings. It is a misleading appearance. In fact. even though we do not remember them, the old actions repeat themselves through the impulses generated by them. The past that is apparently over still clings to the ankles of the developing future and repeatedly pulls backwards the advancing steps of the incessantly self-renewing nature.

Old Ghosts Arise

Or from its buried corpse old ghosts arise,
Old thoughts, old longings, dead passions live again,
Recur in sleep or move the waking man
To words that force the barrier of the lips,
To deeds that suddenly start and o’erleap
His head of reason and his guardian will.

From the past taken for dead and buried in the sands of time, old ghosts spring up; old thoughts, old desires, spent passions come to life again and repeat themselves in sleep or impel man, even in his waking condition, to speech that is involuntary, precipitate him into actions that are sudden and overwhelm his ruling reason and his presiding will which are helpless against them.

Old Self Lurks

An old self lurks in the new self we are;
Hardly we escape from what we once had been:
In the dim gleam of habit’s passages,
In the subconscient’s darkling corridors
All things are carried by the porter nerves
And nothing checked by subterranean mind,
Unstudied by the guardians of the doors,
And passed by a blind instinctive memory,

Nothing that has been once alive in our experience is entirely dead. Something of the old always survives in the new self that we are constantly becoming. The old reveals itself through persistent habits. From the dark regions of the subconscient, things are carried up through the nerve-channels; the subconscious mind does not stop them, the usual sentinels of vigilance and discrimination are lax there; the blind instinctive memory also admits them because of their familiarity. Thus does the whole gang of them, though relegated to the past and dismissed by the conscious mind. re-enter surreptitiously.

Old nature Survives

In dim tunnels of the world’s being and in ours
The old rejected nature still survives;
The corpses of its slain thoughts raise their heads
And visit mind’s nocturnal walks in sleep,
Its stifled impulses breathe and move and rise;
All keeps a phantom immortality.

The old rejected nature survives and continues in the subterranean regions of the being of the world and of ourselves. Rejected and forgotten thoughts rise up in dreams, their movements suppressed in the waking mind are released here.

Everything has an air of permanence.

Seeds of Sin Sprout

Irresistible are Nature’s sequences:
The seeds of sins renounced sprout from hid soil;
The evil cast from our hearts once more we face.

Our dead selves come to slay our living soul.

The ordered movements of Nature will not be interrupted or broken. Once a cause is admitted, its results cannot be cut off; in one form or another they will show themselves. We may renounce the sins for which we were responsible, but the seeds of those sins still sprout from the hidden soil where they were thrown. Repeatedly do we come up against the evil we have cast away from ourselves.

Our past doings, our personalities shaped by those doings, are never wholly dead; they stage come-backs to defeat and slay our present, living soul.

Only a Portion Lives

A portion of us lives in present Time,
A secret mass in dim inconscience gropes;
Out of the inconscient and subliminal
Arisen, we live in mind’s uncertain light
And strive to know and master a dubious world
Whose purpose and meaning are hidden from our sight.

Only a portion of our being participates in our present life. A large part of it is rooted and blindly moves in the obscurity of the inconscience below; more is spread out behind the veil in the subliminal. Projected from both these realms of our existence, our surface being lives in the unsteady light of the mind, struggles to know and control the problematic world around, whose purpose and meaning are concealed from its vision.

Above, Around and Below

Above us dwells a superconscient god
Hidden in the mystery of his own light:
Around us is a vast of ignorance
Lit by the uncertain ray of human mind,
Below us sleeps the Inconscient dark and mute.

Thus what is revealed of us is but precious little.

Above us is the superconscience covered in its transcendent light; around is the sea of Ignorance lit up here and there by the unsure ray of our mental intelligence; below is spread out the dormant and obscure region of the Inconscience.

Greater Self of Knowledge Waits

But this is only Matter’s first self-view,
A scale and series in the Ignorance.

This is not all we are or all our world.

Our greater self of knowledge waits for us,
A supreme light in the truth-conscious Vast:
It sees from summits beyond thinking mind,
It moves in a splendid air transcending life.

It shall descend and make earth’s life divine.

However, all this is only the first view when Matter looks at itself; it is a gradation in the cosmic Ignorance. This is not the whole truth of ourselves or of the world.There is a greater self of Knowledge that

Vijnanamaya purusha of the Taittiriya Upanishad.

awaits us; it is a supreme light that ever shines in a vast region where all is truth-consciousness? That Knowledge-Self sees from altitudes of being that are beyond the farthest ranges of our thinking mind; it moves in a free and radiant plane that transcends terrestrial life. When that will descend here on earth—as it surely shall—our life here will be transmuted into a divine life.

Satyam,ritam,brihat,the Truth, the Right, the Vast of the Veda.

Our Summit’s

Truth made the world, not a blind Nature-Force.

For here are not our large diviner heights;
Our summits in the superconscient’s blaze
Are glorious with the very face of God:

This world of ours has not, indeed, been made by a blind mechanical Force of Nature as it would appear at first sight. It has been created by Truth. There are larger heights of our existence which are divine; they are not revealed here in our present conditions of Ignorance. There on the blazing summits of the superconscient can be had the glorious vision of God Himself.

Our Aspect of Eternity

There is our aspect of eternity,
There is the figure of the god we are,
His young unaging look on deathless things,
His joy in our escape from death and Time,
His immortality and light and bliss.

There on the summits is that part of us that is eternal, not subject to time and death. That part, that self, is our divine being that ever regards things immortal, joys in its transcendence of death and time and is radiant in its natural state of immortality, light and bliss.

Greatnesses Hidden Within

Our larger being sits behind cryptic walls:
There are greatnesses hidden in our unseen parts
That wait their hour to step into life’s front:
We feel an aid from deep indwelling Gods:
One speaks within, Light comes to us from above.

Behind our limited surface being, behind its unseen walls, extends our inner, larger being. Hidden in our inner parts are intensities of power and consciousness that await the right conditions to come forward and manifest in external life. That is why we are aware, at times, of receiving help from deep within ourselves—from the Gods dwelling within; there speaks a Guidance from within, there comes a Light from above.

Our Soul Acts

Our soul from its mysterious chamber acts;
Its influence pressing on our heart and mind
Pushes them to exceed their mortal selves.

It seeks for Good and Beauty and for God;
We see beyond self’s walls our limitless self,
We gaze through our world’s glass at half-seeing vasts,
We hunt for the Truth behind apparent things.

Our soul, seated in its secret chambers within, is active. It exerts itself, its influence presses on our heart and mind, our feelings and thinkings, and drives them to exceed their limited, mortal formations. The soul seeks for Goodness, Beauty and God even in conditions that are the veryopposite. Due to its pressure we are urged to look beyond the walls of our limiting ego-self and perceive our larger unbounded self, to glimpse half-revealed vastitudes of Being through the eyes of the world, to search for abiding Truth behind the fleeting appearances in the universe.

Inner Mind

Our inner Mind dwells in a larger light,
Its brightness looks at us through hidden doors;
Our members luminous grow and Wisdom’s face
Appears in the doorway of the mystic ward:
When she enters into our house of outward sense,
Then we look up and see, above, her sun.

The mind with which we normally function is not the whole Mind. It is only the outer mind on the surface. There is an inner Mind which lives in a larger, wider light; its radiance regards us through veiled openings. By its action our faculties grow luminous and Wisdom dawns on the horizons of our mental being. When this Wisdom emerges into the realm of our senses which are turned outward, we begin to look upwards—not outwards—and behold the Sun of Knowledge above the mental skies,

Life-Self

A mighty life-self with its inner powers
Supports the dwarfish modicum we call life;
It can graft upon our crawl two puissant wings.

Similarly what we call our life is only a small portion, a fragment, of the mighty surge of life that supports and sustains from below and behind. It is vibrant with inner powers that are irresistible and it organises itself around our inner self. It is this inner vital that gives momentum to our movements and enables us to soar beyond the domains of physical Matter.

Body’s Subtle Self

Our body’s subtle self is throned within
In its viewless palace of veridical dreams
That are bright shadows of the thoughts of God.

Even our physical body—so obviously limited in its capacities and range—has a subtler self behind the exterior surface. This subtle-physical is a veiled field of visions and dreams that come true on the physical plane afterwards—dreams that are truly bright transcriptions or impressions of the musings of God.

From Prone Obscure Beginnings

In the prone obscure beginnings of the race
The human grew in the bowed apelike man.

He stood erect, a Godlike form and force
And a soul’s thoughts looked out from earthborn eyes;

In the obscure and earth-bound beginnings of the human race, man first had a bent- figure resembling that of the ape. Gradually this hunchbacked body straightened up and its posture became erect, it acquired the form and force of a god. From his earth-born eyes, the thoughts of the soul within looked out. These eyes were no longer directed towards the ground but looked proudly upwards and around.

Man Stood Erect

Man stood erect, he wore the thinker’s brow:
He looked at heaven and saw his comrade stars;
A vision came of beauty and greater birth
Slowly emerging from the heart’s chapel of light
And moved in a white lucent air of dreams.

From the original bent position of the apelike figure, man stood erect. The thinker in him came into action. He looked up at the skies and saw the friendly stars above. A vision of beauty, of a slow transforming change emerging from out of the temple of light in the heart came and took shape in a pure, radiant dream-state.

Nascent Demi-God

He saw his being’s unrealised vastnesses,
He aspired and housed the nascent demi-god.

Out of the dim recesses of the self
The occult seeker into the open came:

He perceived the vastnesses of his being still. to be realised; he aspired to grow and articulated the urge of the awakening half-god within to come into his own. From out of the veiled regions of his inner self the unseen seeker in him emerged into the open.Vision, aspiration, seeking took keen shape.

Subtle Senses

He heard the far and touched the intangible,
He gazed into the future and the unseen;
He used the powers earth-instruments cannot use,
A pastime made of the impossible;
He caught up fragments of the Omniscient’s thought,
He scattered formulas of omnipotence.

His subtle senses awoke and he heard what is beyond the physical hearing, touched what is physically not sensible, looked into the realms of the future and the unseen beyond physical vision; he was able to use new powers which the ordinary creatures of earth cannot handle. What is impossible for the normal physical nature became a plaything for him. He could grasp something of the thought of the omniscient Consciousness. He made liberal use of the processes of the supernal omnipotent Power.

Man on the Roof of Things

Thus man in his little house made of earth’s dust
Grew towards an unseen heaven of thought and dream
Looking into the vast vistas of his mind
On a small globe dotting infinity.

At last climbing a long and narrow stair
He stood alone on a high roof of things
And saw the light of a spiritual sun.

Thus did man on this little globe, which is but a speck in the Infinite, encased in a weak and transient physical body, grow towards the unseen heights of thought and dream, gazing into the expanding horizons of his mind.

He climbed the long, narrow stair of evolution and arriving at a high summit-the only creature to do so—beheld the light of a spiritual sun in the firmament.

In the Largeness of His Soul

Aspiring he transcends his earthly self;
He stands in the largeness of his soul new-born
Redeemed from encirclement by mortal things
And moves in a pure free spiritual realm
As in the rare breath of a stratosphere.

By aspiring to rise above his earthly state, he goes beyond it. His soul reveals itself in its innate largeness and rising above the bondage of mortal things, he stations himself in the vastitude of his soul; he moves and lives in a spiritual dimension pure and free from the clamps of mortality, as in the high air above the earth-atmosphere.

He Calls the Godhead

A lost end of far lines of divinity,
He mounts by a frail thread to his high source;
He reaches his fount of immortality,
He calls the Godhead into his mortal life.

At first man moved far away from Divinity. Then by means of a slender linking thread of aspiration he climbs back to his Source and reaches his original fount of immortality. From there he calls the answering Godhead into his mortal life on earth.

A Portion of mighty Mother

All this the spirit concealed had done in her:
A portion of the mighty Mother came
Into her as into its own human part:
Amid the cosmic workings of the Gods
It marked her the centre of a wide-drawn scheme,
Dreamed in the passion of her far-seeing spirit
To mould humanity into God’s own shape
And lead this great blind struggling world to light
Or a new world discover or create.

The veiled Spirit had effected all these developments in Savitri. An emanation of the mighty Mother descended into her as into its own human part. Savitri was made the centre of a wide-planned scheme conceived in the force of a far-reaching Idea to build humanity in the mould of God, to lead this blind struggling world to eternal light, to discover or create a wholly new world.

Psyche must put off her Veil

Earth must transform herself and equal Heaven
Or Heaven descend into earth’s mortal state.

But for such vast spiritual change to be,
Out of the mystic cavern in man’s heart
The heavenly Psyche must put off her veil
And step into common nature’s crowded rooms
And stand uncovered in that nature’s front
And rule its thoughts and fill the body and life.

The Earth must change, transform herself so as to become an equal of Heaven. Or Heaven itself must descend into Earth’s mortal state and transform her.

Such a capital spiritual change, however, can be effected only on the one condition that the divine entity within, the Psyche, must emerge out of the Veil that covers her, take her stand in the outer, active nature and occupy and govern all movements of mind, life and body. The psychic self must come forward and take complete control of the outer nature and personality.

Obedient She Sits

Obedient to a high command she sat:
Time, life and death were passing incidents
Obstructing with their transient view her sight,
Her sight that must break through and liberate the god
Imprisoned in the visionless mortal man.

The inferior nature born into ignorance
Still took too large a place, it veiled her self
And must be pushed aside to find her soul.

Savitri sits in meditation in obedience to a command from above. In that state, time, life and death become mere passing incidents obstructing in their passage her inner sight that needs to break through the veils of nature and set free the divine soul—a portion of God—imprisoned in the blind mortal man.

The lower nature born of ignorance still occupies a large space in her being; it hides her inner self and has to be set aside in order to find her real soul.